Conference of the Parties (COP)

Background and Status

The Conference of the Parties is the governing body of the Convention, and advances implementation of the Convention through the decisions it takes at its periodic meetings.

To date the Conference of the Parties has held 12 ordinary meetings, and one extraordinary meeting (the latter, to adopt the Biosafety Protocol, was held in two parts). From 1994 to 1996, the Conference of the Parties held its ordinary meetings annually. Since then these meetings have been held somewhat less frequently and, following a change in the rules of procedure in 2000, will now be held every two years.

The Twelfth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity was held in Pyeongchang, Republic of Korea from 6 - 17 October 2014. The Thirteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 13) will be held in in Los Cabos, Mexico, in November 2016.

Meetings of the Conference of the Parties

COP 12 -Twelfth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological DiversityPyeongchang, Republic of Korea,6 - 17 October 2014

The agenda of the meetings of the Conference of the Parties is very wide-ranging, reflecting the programme of work the Conference of the Parties has established for itself. At its first meeting, the Conference of the Parties decided on a medium-term programme of work for the period 1995-1997. Implementation of this programme has laid the groundwork for the long-term implementation of the Convention itself. In particular it has seen the development of a number of thematic work programmes, and identified a series of key cross-cutting issues relevant to all work programmes.

The fourth meeting of the Conference of the Parties established a programme of work to cover the period from then until the seventh meeting and, more importantly, established a process to review the operations of the Convention and set out a longer term programme of work. As part of this process, an intersessional meeting on the operations of the Convention was held in 1999, the results of which were reported to the fifth meeting of the Conference of the Parties and formed the basis for a decision on future operations of the Convention.